In colder regions of the US, indoor track season makes sense. It's an incentive to stay in shape during the winter. I grew up in the Midwest where running outside in winter was simply NOT FUN! If it weren't for indoor T&F, I'm not sure how well I would have stayed in shape.In CA and other warm locales, the cold weather disincentive is greatly reduced. Here in the CA central coast the weather is fine year-round, so an indoor season is superfluous.In other words, the indoor season is for laying the base for outdoor track.

To me, it seems like most of the better California Track and Field (TF) athletes choose to train during the winter in preparation for the outdoor TF season. That doesn't make competing during the "indoor" season wrong. I think it's been mentioned many times on here that there are lots of different ways to get to the same destination. Just because one way is different, doesn't make it wrong.

It's not a matter of indoor versus laying a base for outdoor, it's that the Winter Championship meet is stupid. The whole concept is flawed and the entry standards are a joke. Who from NorCal wants to take time off school to go to SoCal to run a race with soft entry standards? Most that run the meets to qualify don't even end up going, they just run the all-comers for fun and to stay sharp. If it was a quality meet that meant something I would bet you could attract the best athletes. The other states that run indoor don't seem to have an issue with keeping their athletes fresh ready for outdoor. When they get to College, they will be running an indoor season anyway so it's not about indoor or base training, it's about why bother wasting time on something that doesn't mean anything.

There are California athletes that run indoor, they just go to real indoor meets to do so. (UW, New Balance Indoor, Boise, Albuquerque, Arizona.) At least at those meets they get real competition.

They should bring back the indoor meet in Fresno and just do away with the Winter Championships. No one cares about it and rightfully so.

1) In other states, cross country ends earlier and outdoor starts later, leaving more space for a full season in between.

2) In places where indoor season is a school sponsored sport, athletes have the luxury of having official team practice and coaching. Some athletes here are on club teams, so they may be okay. Most have some sort of suggested training, but the oversight that a coach is allowed to provide is much less in the winter than it is during the season. I know I'm not out holding a stopwatch and haven't been since November 25th.

3) If an athlete plans to have a competitive winter season, the transition between cross country and that season is going to look very different from what most California athletes do after cross country to get ready for outdoor track. It can be done and some do, but the things that most local athletes are doing do not lend themselves to very good racing. Some athletes like to run that one race to see how their winter training is going and there's nothing wrong with that, but if the focus is building base, running a bunch of races is counterproductive and if you are just building base outside of the races, then the races probably won't be that good anyway.